1UP going from 1-10 scale to A-F scale

[Canuck]

http://kotaku.com/353607/1up-changes-scoring-policy-letters-to-replace-numbers

I welcome this.  Get rid of the useless 10 that has been handed out about twice over the past 15 years (Chrono Crisis and LTTP?).  I love ambiguity!

Actually lets just do away with scores altogether.  Make the lazy bums read the entire article like Wargamer.com does.

[The Grue]

A+ = 10 = Problem not gone.

[Purge]

It makes it better.

I mean "good/bad" is too... binary.

[CeeKay]

but here's what the letters actually stand for:

A+= Awesomely Awesome!
A= Awesome!
B= Bitchin'!
C= Cooler than Cool
D= Damned Awesome!
E= Excellent!
F= Fucking Excellent!

[Turtle]

So essentially this is like a 5 star system.

[Blackjack]

All it means is readers will scream about something getting an A- ("How Dare you!!!!! MORONS!!!!") instead of screaming about some game getting a 8.9/10 ("How can you GIVE THE BEST GAME EVER A 8.9/10? MORONS!!!!!!") or what have you.

Once they realize review scores mean boo for game sales (I've seen Games of the Year flop in the sales department, and mediocrely scored games sell like crazy), and take some valium, this change will pass as well. 

[Canuck]

A+ = 10 = Problem not gone.

How does A+ equal 10 do you figure? 10/10 = 100% 

A+ is a range from between 88-100% I believe.  Of course I didn't get many of those in highschool so I'm not the best source on the matter.   I think we'll see way more games get A+'s than we ever saw get 10/10.

[The Grue]

A+ = 10 = Problem not gone.

How does A+ equal 10 do you figure? 10/10 = 100% 

A+ is a range from between 88-100% I believe.  Of course I didn't get many of those in highschool so I'm not the best source on the matter.   I think we'll see way more games get A+'s than we ever saw get 10/10.

A 10 is the highest in the former scale.  An A+ is the highest in the newest.  When I was in school A+ meant perfect.  10 in the old scale meant perfect.  If a game now gets an A+, people will scream just as loudly as when a game got a 10.

[WinoMcCougarstein]

I like:

Buy It!
Rent It!
Skip It!

[Canuck]

A+ = 10 = Problem not gone.

How does A+ equal 10 do you figure? 10/10 = 100% 

A+ is a range from between 88-100% I believe.  Of course I didn't get many of those in highschool so I'm not the best source on the matter.   I think we'll see way more games get A+'s than we ever saw get 10/10.

A 10 is the highest in the former scale.  An A+ is the highest in the newest.  When I was in school A+ meant perfect.  10 in the old scale meant perfect.  If a game now gets an A+, people will scream just as loudly as when a game got a 10.

Well I don't know what kind of school you went to but as far as I know A+ has never meant perfect.  A+ means "really kickass" but it doesn't mean perfect.  To be perfect it has to be out of something, ie X/5 or X/100.   There's no such thing as C/A+, it's just C.

[Canuck]

Anyways we'll find out in March.  According to Kotaku, 1UP is going to go through their archives and convert everything to the A-F scale.  Super Mario Galaxy currently has a 9.3 score.  If they give it a score of A then you are right.  If they give it a score of A+ then I'm right.

[EngineNo9]

If you think an A+ is a range from 88-100, what the hell is an A or an A-?  When/where I went to school the whole range of A's was 90-100 or 92-100, with A+ being reserved for getting a 100% on something. 

[The Grue]

Well I don't know what kind of school you went to but as far as I know A+ has never meant perfect.  A+ means "really kickass" but it doesn't mean perfect. 

I went to crappy Louisiana public schools and A+ was perfect.  I can't believe it would be easier in other places since Louisiana is pretty much at the bottom of the barrel for education.

[Canuck]

If you think an A+ is a range from 88-100, what the hell is an A or an A-?  When/where I went to school the whole range of A's was 90-100 or 92-100, with A+ being reserved for getting a 100% on something. 

This is what I got from Wikipedia.  Bear in mind that it's only for Ontario so your mileage may vary:

The report cards for Grade 7-8 use percentage marks instead of Letter Grades for the Subjects.

R = 0-49, D- = 50-52, D = 53-56, D+ = 57-59, C- = 60-62, C = 63-66, C+ = 67-69, B- = 70-72, B =73-76, B+ =77-79, A- = 80-84, A =85-89, A+ = 90-100.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Report_card

I think there's a little confusion going on here between; getting the highest score possible, and getting a perfect score.  To me these are not one and the same.  Lets say that you have a test out of 1000.  You almost got perfect but you screwed up the last answer.  Are you telling me that because you got 1 point wrong out of 1000, your school would automatically drop you from having an A+ to only having an A???  To me, whether it be in high school or university, I was always told that A or A+ basically meant going beyond what was expected from whomever at that current level.  Nobody ever told me that I needed to be perfect to get an A+.  They just told me that they expected to a 1st year university student to submit the same quality of paper as a 3rd year student might submit.

[EddieA]

I hope they don't do just a numerical conversion for the letter grades.  If they did Bad Day LA's 1/10 would be equivalent to Unreal Tournament 3's 6/10, with both getting Fs. 

[The Grue]

I think there's a little confusion going on here between; getting the highest score possible, and getting a perfect score. 

The highest score possible is a perfect score.  If there are 1,000,000 points to get and you get only 999,999, you didn't get a perfect score or the highest score possible.  Must be a Canada/U.S. difference, then.  I went to school in two different states (lived in Virginia when I was in my first couple of grades) and both places gave A+s for perfect scores.

[Canuck]

I think there's a little confusion going on here between; getting the highest score possible, and getting a perfect score. 

The highest score possible is a perfect score.  If there are 1,000,000 points to get and you get only 999,999, you didn't get a perfect score or the highest score possible.  Must be a Canada/U.S. difference, then.  I went to school in two different states (lived in Virginia when I was in my first couple of grades) and both places gave A+s for perfect scores.

Well I will certainly give you that there are differences between the regions. I just want to make clear though. You're saying that in your school if you scored a hypothetical 99 out of 100  on a test then you would receive a simple A rather than an A+?

[The Grue]

Well I will certainly give you that there are differences between the regions. I just want to make clear though. You're saying that in your school if you scored a hypothetical 99 out of 100  on a test then you would receive a simple A rather than an A+?

Yep.

[Kevin Grey]

Canuck, I don't know where Wiki got that report card from but that is not what I grew up with.  Roughly it was:

93-100:  A    85-92:  B  78-84: C  70-77: D   <70: E/F 

In college it moved to a 10 pt scale (ie 90-100: A, etc)

As far as EGM/1Up not giving 10s out frequently- untrue.  They've given lots out in recent years.

[Destructor]

Canuck, I don't know where Wiki got that report card from but that is not what I grew up with.  Roughly it was:

93-100:  A    85-92:  B  78-84: C  70-77: D   <70: E/F 

In college it moved to a 10 pt scale (ie 90-100: A, etc)

I was just about to post something about that, but you beat me to it.

A 20 point curve for an A grade? Good lord would that have made school easy as all hell.

[ATB]

OUrs was:

A = 94-100
B+ 93- 90
B 89-???

F = anything 63 or lower.

[Tebunker]

We had seven point scales with no plusses and minuses growing up. It was tough, 93 - 100 for an A was hard.

[kathode]

We used some crazy scale they came up with where A was 90-100 (100 alone was A+) and failing was anything below 75. 

Still, I think trying to equate letter scores to numerical scores in this case pretty well misses the point of changing to letter scores.

[mikeg]

How 'bout no score whatsoever.  Just describe the gameplay and features and let everyone make up their own mind what they think of a game that plays that way and has those options.

[Canuck]

Well crap I'm glad I didn't go to any of your schools!! I would have had a hell of a lot less B's and a hell of a lot more D's!!  No offence to your schools but I think 1UP will use a grading scale more like Ontario's.  Or else we would have a heck of a lot of D games!

[CeeKay]

yeh, ours edumaction be a tuf sistim.

[Zarkon]

If I recall correct, in Texas, it used to be that anything below a 70 was failing, D was like 70-77, C being 78-83 or so, B being 84-90 and A being 91+.  A+ was generally 98-100

Granted, this was nearly 20 years ago.

[Purge]

A= 90-100
B= 80-90
C= 70-80
D= 60-70
E= 50-60
F= <50

Plusses and minuses are based on top or low mark in the caste.

[Starshifter]

I've been preaching this forever:  all reviews should just go away.  Everywhere.  It doesn't matter what scale or concoction you come up with.  They are all useless.  I'm not going to have some dipstick from X gaming site/magazine etc. tell me if a game is good or not.  I'll see for myself.  Same goes for movies.  Does anyone actually not go see a movie because the critics say it sucks?

I'm bewildered when someone says they are not picking up a game because so and so site gave it a 6.8 or a C+ or a rent only.  What if it was a game that YOU would enjoy for one reason or another?  You would miss out.

[Koz]

I always grew up with:

97-100 A+
93-96 A
90-92 A-
87-89 B+
83-86 B
80-82 B-
77-79 C+
73-76 C
70-72 C-
67-69 D+
63-66 D
60-62 D-
59 and below F

So A+ includes perfect but isn't relegated to just that.

On topic, a letter scale basically allows them to be more general about their grades and give similar games the same mark rather than giving one a 87 and one a 88, when they both were pretty much the same.

[Teggy]

A= 90-100
B= 80-90
C= 70-80
D= 60-70
E= 50-60
F= <50

Plusses and minuses are based on top or low mark in the caste.

My grade schools were closest to this, except that generally <65 was an F and there was no such thing as an "E".

[Purge]

We got E's instead of F's except in final tests/grades.

[denoginizer]

I've been preaching this forever:  all reviews should just go away.  Everywhere.  It doesn't matter what scale or concoction you come up with.  They are all useless.  I'm not going to have some dipstick from X gaming site/magazine etc. tell me if a game is good or not.  I'll see for myself.  Same goes for movies.  Does anyone actually not go see a movie because the critics say it sucks?

I'm bewildered when someone says they are not picking up a game because so and so site gave it a 6.8 or a C+ or a rent only.  What if it was a game that YOU would enjoy for one reason or another?  You would miss out.

I agree 100%.

I read reviews to see what a game is about or how it works.  But I do not base buying decisions off of them.

[Laner]

Does anyone actually not go see a movie because the critics say it sucks?

Actually, yeah.  If a flick is getting a 5% fresh on rottentomatoes, I'm probably going to avoid it unless I have a really good reason for wanting to see it.  It's not the ultimate litmus test, but review scores are certainly one factor among several that I use in determining where I spend my hard-earned money.  Sadly I have neither the time or money to listen to/watch/play/read everything that comes out to decide whether or not I like it.

[unbreakable]

I would be happy with a three rank system:

Good game, we recommend
Average game, not a waste of time
Terrible game, do not buy

That's about all I read reviews to find out.  If it's good, I probably don't need to hear why the reviewer thought it was good, or why it's better than whatever other game is out at the time, etc.  That's all subjective.

By the same token, that's why I like the "average" score.  Because there are games which were considered average (or even reviewed negatively) which I found to be fun games.  If the game is "your thing", you will view an average game as a good game.  So just saying it's average won't scare people away from games they might enjoy.

And then we get to terrible, where either technical problems (crashs, bugs, broken scripts, whatever) or else just really bad game design make it something to avoid.  Now there are some games which are good despite their bugs... but that's not really something worth rewarding.  When I see a game like that, I just think it's a real shame they couldn't have taken their good idea and put a bit more work into making something worth buying.

[Zarkon]

The problem with 'no scores' is simple.  The publishers (and their PR people) can't stand it.

They /want/ the numbers.  They thrive on it.  I know Ron has said numerous times one of the first things he hears from PR people once we're getting ready to post a review is 'what's the score?'.  So, as much as some may dislike it, review scores aren't going away.

[Kevin Grey]

The problem with 'no scores' is simple.  The publishers (and their PR people) can't stand it.

Readers want them too.  CGW tried the "no scores" thing a couple of years ago and they got a horde of negative feedback against it. 

[Zarkon]

Yes, but readers are honestly going to complain no matter what is done.  No scores = bitch.  Scores they don't agree with = bitch.    Granted, we see less of that here, IMO.

[Rowdy]

I've been preaching this forever:  all reviews should just go away.  Everywhere.  It doesn't matter what scale or concoction you come up with.  They are all useless.  I'm not going to have some dipstick from X gaming site/magazine etc. tell me if a game is good or not.  I'll see for myself.  Same goes for movies.  Does anyone actually not go see a movie because the critics say it sucks?

I'm bewildered when someone says they are not picking up a game because so and so site gave it a 6.8 or a C+ or a rent only.  What if it was a game that YOU would enjoy for one reason or another?  You would miss out.

Are you honestly suggesting that everyone has the time and money to see or play every movie, show and game out there that at some point catches their eye?  What do you suggest when a person buys a game or ticket to a movie and hates it, or worse, it's broken?  Waiting for reviews is only prudent when you have limited time and money to spend on more media than is possible to consume.  A review that says a game is technically fine but has content that might only appeal to a few has imparted valuable information - I may consider that game.  A review that says a game has crippling bugs has saved me time and money.

[TheMissingLink]

I've been preaching this forever:  all reviews should just go away.  Everywhere.  It doesn't matter what scale or concoction you come up with.  They are all useless.  I'm not going to have some dipstick from X gaming site/magazine etc. tell me if a game is good or not.  I'll see for myself.  Same goes for movies.  Does anyone actually not go see a movie because the critics say it sucks?

I'm bewildered when someone says they are not picking up a game because so and so site gave it a 6.8 or a C+ or a rent only.  What if it was a game that YOU would enjoy for one reason or another?  You would miss out.

Wow.  Woooooow, wow.